Tipping Poison In The Ear
An unnamed New York Times reader asks, “How can I cure my white guilt?”
I’m riddled with shame. White shame. This isn’t helpful to me or to anyone, especially people of colour. I feel like there is no “me” outside of my white/upper middle class/cisgender identity. I feel like my literal existence hurts people, like I’m always taking up space that should belong to someone else.
Times contributors Cheryl Strayed and Steve Almond, self-styled purveyors of “radically empathic advice,” inform this unhappy, seemingly demented reader that, “We do live in a culture steeped in white supremacy and class bigotry, as well as patriarchal values,” and therefore any comforts and advantages the reader might have, however they were arrived at, are “unearned, the product of corrupt systems,” for which “every white person should be ashamed.” “What you really feel,” they continue, “is trapped within an identity that marks you, inescapably, as an oppressor.”
Today’s words are abuse, creepy and cult.
Via Dicentra.
Today’s words are abuse, creepy and cult.
Gaslighting.
Sarah Jeong will fit right in.
I feel like my literal existence hurts people, like I’m always taking up space that should belong to someone else.
It has to be trolling.
Godfrey Elfwick is at a loose end at the moment I hear.
It has to be trolling.
The reader’s letter could be fabricated, I suppose, either as trolling or click-bait. Or it could be an affectation, a kind of designer victimhood. But the sentiments are common enough among the pretentious and neurotic, and the advice being offered, and the people giving it, are quite real. Albeit psychologically poisonous and morally revolting.
“Designer victimhood.”
Damn, you have a way with words.
Btw, if you view the madness as status anxiety, desperately trying to appease … it starts to make sense, actually.
I also immediately thought “so Godfrey is writing under the name Whitey now”.
This self-flagellation is one way that a civilisation can collapse.
This self-flagellation is one way that a civilisation can collapse.
Well, it seems to me that a functional society requires a kind of cultural confidence. Of a kind that the left actively despises and attempts to corrode. With some success.
Imagine if you were a left-leaning American who didn’t really buy into this white guilt crap. As it slowly takes over the Democratic party, what exactly do you do, other than stay at home on polling day?
Well, it seems to me that a functional society requires a kind of cultural confidence. Of a kind that the left actively despises and attempts to corrode.
They despise confidence. They love narcissism. They need something they can bend and break.
Twenty years ago this garbage was confined to the ghettos of a few odd Humanities departments. Now it’s all over the culture. That just shows that you don’t fund and tolerate this shit when it appears.
I suppose the above illustrates a point I’ve made here before – that leftism isn’t just a hopelessly vain and unrealistic way of looking at the world; it also tends to entail attitudes and posturing that are psychologically revolting.
I consider myself an ally. I research proper etiquette, read writers of color, vote in a way that will not harm P.O.C. (and other vulnerable people).
Jonathan says:
Stop feeling this nonsensical ‘white guilt’. It’s nothing but a device used by hostile leftists and non-whites to undermine and gain control over Western nations. White people have done no more evil than any people on Earth have done, so vote and act in your own self interest and that of your own family and friends – I guarantee that every member of every other ethnic group does so, why should white people be different?
Oh, and if you ever get a chance to meet Cheryl Strayed and Steve Almond, tell them to go f**k themselves.
If she (I’m pretty sure) is taking up space that doesn’t belong to her, the logical solutions are emigration or suicide.
I’ve never read Cheryl Strayed, but Steve Almond may be the only writer on earth who could make candy bars boring.
Guilt-ridden wipipo could cook and clean for POC households and pay for the privilege of doing so.
Is the left’s clinical, projecting obsession with domestic identity fantasies balanced by its clinical, projecting obsession with its sole foreign existential threat Russia, or is the left’s clinical, projecting obsession with the guy who has nothing to do with Russia, Trump, a manifestation of its clinical, projecting obsession with identity fantasies?
Sounds clinical either way. On that note, what happens when you have clinical, projecting, fantasized obsessions with identity? You have an election: https://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/story/news/politics/2018/08/14/vermont-primary-christine-hallquist-wins-democratic-primary-phil-scott-republican/991259002/
Next, the left elects a manikin for office and makes projection a constitutional amendment.
Imagine if you were a left-leaning American who didn’t really buy into this white guilt crap. As it slowly takes over the Democratic party, what exactly do you do, other than stay at home on polling day?
You misspelled right.
You have an election
I hate to sound needlessly bitchy, but… the lensing of the chosen photo for that article has the unfortunate effect of making the, um, lady’s hands look enormous.
Today’s words are abuse, creepy and cult.
Two words: They wrote the “letter” from “Whitey” (natch) themselves just so they could write the nonsense after.
One of the tells:
Although East Harlem is currently being invaded by wypipo (if you recall the flap about the hamburger joint), it is also known as Spanish Harlem, and has been for about the last four generations. “Whitey” might have noticed the abundance of signs in Spanish, unless he went back about eight generations when it was a mix of dirt poor eastern Europeans, Italians, and Germans, all of whom were a little short on privilege in those days.
The odds that “white/upper middle class” wypipo have “…lived in the same apartment in East Harlem for four generations…”, East Harlem being one of the most impoverished parts of the city, are about zero. I shouldn’t need to be stated that the reason that it is Spanish Harlem is most of the wypipo moved out and the “Spanish” people moved in. The chances that Cheryl and Steve just moved into a trendy closet masquerading as an apartment there and think that the groovy neighborhood they live in has always been that way, OTOH, are good enough to bet the riverboat on.
They wrote the “letter” from “Whitey” (natch) themselves just so they could write the nonsense after.
That does seem entirely possible, and suitably dishonest. Though again, identical sentiments aren’t exactly hard to find, especially among those who’ve been severely educated.
I feel vaguely dirty having read that. In truth I’m ashamed of having given them a click.
But I’m sure I’ll get over it.
I hate to sound needlessly bitchy…
Heh.
You know, even given the right’s insistence on feckless squandering, you’d think at least a few of us would have launched a movement demanding the left itemize even the implied virtues of its perpetual candidate clown show. Is there some inherent gubernatorial goodness of a guy in a dress?
Nope; the right makes no such push but then to compound things, stays home on election day commiserating because politics are just so messy. Then the left does its damage and moderates put a finger in the wind each cycle and blindly gull pull a lever.
Twenty years ago this garbage was confined to the ghettos of a few odd Humanities departments. Now it’s all over the culture. That just shows that you don’t fund and tolerate this shit when it appears.
But niceness counts for so much. Let’s be nice and avoid icky sounds and words and feelings. Let’s go vote for the underdog. The long-shot. The novelty.
I feel like there is no “me” outside of my white/upper middle class/cisgender identity.
I suspect the above statement is correct, not least because I also suspect Farnsworth might be spot on.
I judge from the nomination of a tranny with hands like shovels that the Democrats still think ‘full retard’ is a winning strategy.
I judge from the nomination of a tranny with hands like shovels that the Democrats still think ‘full retard’ is a winning strategy.
How dare you say this chap has an unlady-like appearance. I say good day, Sir.
http://www.unz.com/isteve/nyt-whitey-asks-how-can-i-cure-my-white-guilt/
But since white guilt is the politically correct narrative, it doesn’t matter that it is parody.
As someone quips in the comments there, “White guilt, the new anorexia.”
It has to be trolling
Sadly, no.
I saw the Black Panther movie in the theater with a coworker friend. Originally, the plan was to have a group of about 7 or 8 of us from work, all African expats. Others were welcome, of course, but I was curious to see how guys from the different states (South Africa, Congo, and Tanzania, mostly) would view it.
The plan was cancelled due to the interference of the evil entities know as wives, and so only the two single guys ended up seeing it together.
However, during the planning session, I was treated to people in the company who were asking, seriously, about when they should be allowed to see it, because they were worried that they would be “intruding” on a “moment”.
Of course, since I’m white, these same people were freaking out, because on the one hand, I shouldn’t be intruding, and on the other hand, having been there, I should be, oh, it was very… problematic. Yes, they went there.
As you’d imagine, all of the African expats snorted, rolled their eyes, and said “you know it’s just seeing a movie, right?”.
So yeah, this definitely happens to trigger-Canadians and trigger-Americans. I’ve seen it.
I guess the only question is whether it’s trolling when people troll themselves?
…self-styled purveyors of “radically empathic advice”…
I once knew an apparent NPD possessing the type’s typical lack of common empathy and its practiced ability to devalue. Having been advised that those attributes showed, said craft show mystic then handily proceeded to make empath the next personal incarnation. While well advertised, this episode in the series didn’t last either, unavoidably questioning the claim.
These sorts of public self-stylings are about as compelling as explaining the punch line. Actually, maybe they are explaining punch lines.
The plan was cancelled due to the interference of the evil entities know as wives,
I’m laughing and I’m not sorry.
Re the guy with hands like shovels: I heard him interviewed on the radio, and there’s a lot of hormones and voice coaching in the future if he’s to have any hope of convincing anyone that he’s female.
At times like this, I turn to Burns: “Wee, sleeket, cowran, tim’rous beastie, “
So, if human existence is merely a series of random events–blessings or curses–which occur without regard to human agency and or choice, what then is the moral basis for “white guilt?” Or, if my worth is solely based on my “immutable” identity over which I have zero control, i.e. which is one of those random events, what is the moral basis for “white guilt?”
@David: “Imagine if you were a left-leaning American who didn’t really buy into this white guilt crap. As it slowly takes over the Democratic party, what exactly do you do, other than stay at home on polling day?”
Open your eyes and realize that the Trump administration is the true left-leaning party of the day. The ideological labels have all been switched around – again.
But since white guilt is the politically correct narrative, it doesn’t matter that it is parody.
The letter does have just about every tic and mental contortion expected of the type, like a checklist of woke agonising. Or the intersectional equivalent of the Penthouse letters page. Though as the ‘real’ thing is laughably pretentious anyway, the distinction between an actual letter from someone who’s internalised this pernicious garbage and then acts it out, and a fabrication by people who’ve internalised it and are acting it out, seems rather slim. It’s just slightly differing shades of the same pathology.
kfg,
I didn’t write that comment. Charlie Suet did.
“So, if human existence is merely a series of random events”
They’ve already inoculated themselves against logic by proclaiming it ‘white man’s logic’ and therefore ‘racist’.
It’s all FEELZ. Stupid, knee-jerk, yay-for-me FEELZ.
It’s like talking to children that, for some unfathomable reason, get to vote, buy houses, and drive cars.
Open your eyes and realize that the Trump administration is the true left-leaning party of the day. The ideological labels have all been switched around – again.
This should be good.
I saw the Black Panther movie in the theater […]
There’s a lot of stealth undermining of the SJW narrative in the current MCU. Thanos the radical environmental activist is just the most obvious example, but Black Panther has a sneaky one: Killmonger’s rant about the black diaspora being abandoned by Wakanda is clearly projection of his own resentment of his father for abandoning him at a young age by getting himself killed for being a criminal.
It’s almost like they’re saying something about the root causes of the violent black underculture in America.
The letter is parody…But since white guilt is the politically correct narrative…
The New York Times, that august entity which hired Sarah “Kill All The White Men” Jeong with a straight face, does not do parody against the politically correct narrative which leads to The Glorious World of Next Tuesday.
Not intentionally, at any rate.
So, if human existence is merely a series of random events–blessings or curses–which occur without regard to human agency and or choice, what then is the moral basis for “white guilt?” Or, if my worth is solely based on my “immutable” identity over which I have zero control, i.e. which is one of those random events, what is the moral basis for “white guilt?”
Indeed. If I subscribe to their logic then the only options for me as an inherently-evil and privileged whitey are:
a) eternal self-abasement, without the possibility of absolution
b) stick a pillow case on my head* and toast me some nigras**
*having first cut out eyeholes
** just to be clear, I don’t accept their logic, am not racist and don’t want to toast anyone
How dare you say this chap has an unlady-like appearance.
He could strangle a walrus with those mitts.
it could be an affectation, a kind of designer victimhood … as the ‘real’ thing is laughably pretentious anyway, the distinction between an actual letter from someone who’s internalised this pernicious garbage and then acts it out, and a fabrication …
Assuming the letter writer to exist and not be a troll, here’s a theory:
* He’s trying to carve out a niche for himself in his elite private college, exploiting his New York street cred to stand out from his classmates with more whitebread upbringings. In 1978, this would have meant namedropping bands you saw in CBGB’s. In 2018, this means citing your experience of being in a white minority.
* He’s telling lies by omission about his vibrant neighborhood/school. Not sure how that’s done for the neighborhood part of his story, whether there’s some corner in East Harlem that’s not really of East Harlem. In the case of his “minority white” school, you can imagine a private school that’s majority Asian, with the children of upper caste immigrants padding out the black/Hispanic numbers. These kinds of schools train their white students in the self-critique oneupmanship displayed in the letter.
* He’s not as ashamed of himself as he pretends. His self-castigation purifies him and shames his white classmates who haven’t been as forthcoming about confessing their ethnic guilt.
He could strangle a walrus with those mitts.
Of course he is from Vermont, the same state that brought us noted socialist Bernie “Three Houses” Sanders, so the chances of his getting elected are pretty high.
Of course if that happens, along with the elections She Guevara, The Bronx Carpetbagger from Westchester, and in Minnesota, Ilhan “I Married My Brother” Omar, and Keith “#MeToo” Ellison, the normal states need to have an inverse secession and start throwing states out. We can trade Minnesota to Canada for Alberta, and Vermont to Cuba.
“I feel like my literal existence hurts people, like I’m always taking up space that should belong to someone else.”
If she (I’m pretty sure) is taking up space that doesn’t belong to her, the logical solutions are emigration or suicide
That would be taking the original statement to its logical conclusion.
However
1. To where would the Evil Wypipo go if they did wish to emigrate? What place is acceptable Wypipoland?
2. After the wypipo genocide who will keep everything going? More importantly, who will get to be in charge?
I don’t believe for a second that the 50 Shades of Color are all gonna live peacefully in harmony with each other. The one thing for which wypipo are essential is giving the non-wypipo a common enemy to unite against, blame, etc.
1. To where would the Evil Wypipo go if they did wish to emigrate? What place is acceptable Wypipoland?
I keep saying it: giant mass driver + Bishop Rings. Everyone gets his own little
dysUtopia.1. To where would the Evil Wypipo go if they did wish to emigrate?
Wakanda.
“human experience is a series of random events”
But no one behaves as if that is true.
Anyway, I am waiting for those monkeys to type out the works of Shakespeare. I haven’t even seen a snippet of a sonnet out of them. Not even a couplet of Angelou, and how hard would that be?
“I feel like my literal existence hurts people”
Replace “t” with “b” in the 5th word.
Much closer to truth.
I hate to sound needlessly bitchy, but… the lensing of the chosen photo for that article has the unfortunate effect of making the, um, lady’s hands look enormous.
erm…I don’t think it’s the lensing…
After seeing various pics of the candidate, the famous Seinfeld episode came to mind: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3LwduVzKNTs
“She had…man-hands!”
Sadly, that episode would never get made in the modern age of That’s Not Funny.